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Dividing lines: 'The Meridian Cafe' premieres in American Lives Theatre production

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  Serious couple spat: Billy and Sara Extraordinary rapport between a playwright and a theater artistic director accounts for the special stature of a world premiere that opened Thursday night at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Centre. Chris Saunders, artistic director of American Lives Theatre , has long admired the work of Lucy Thurber, and that admiration bore fruit in the offer to write a play for ALT centered on Indianapolis, including input into selection of a cast that would shape the creative process.  Saunders of course directed this first-ever production, which was saved as I saw it from looking overpolished and tidy by superb acting in the wild life paths followed by each of the characters.  Thus, a perfectly realized premiere stayed fresh and surprising over its Luke looks on as James calms Candace. 70-minute span. Besides, the playwright's reported delight in getting acquainted with Indianapolis plays an essential role in "The Meridian Cafe," along with the sho...
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A safe distance: ICO celebrates 'Shakespeare and Love,' not 'Shakespeare in Love'

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Adam Golka, Matthew Kraemer and ICO revel in top-flight Mozart. Whatever Shakespeare's  characters put their minds and their voices to, they likely had something lasting to say upon any subject.  The fact that we don't know what William Shakespeare felt or said personally about anything, from the spotty biographical evidence available to us, didn't prevent such questionable delight as "Shakespeare in Love" generated  a generation ago — a costume rom-com allowing us to wallow in the young Bard's world as a theater careerist  hungry for patronage, creative encouragement, and, on the side, romantic success.  For the sake of a believable themed program to open its season, the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra came up with a more prudent paraphrase of that 1999 movie's title. So Matthew Kraemer and his ensemble began the season delivering "Shakespeare and Love."  That allowed for a little separation, which invited  Adam Golka' s solo appearance in a...
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Mahler mainstreamed: ISO returns to the challenge, building a legacy with his symphonies

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Mahler on ship back to Europe, 1911, near the end of his death-haunted life Veteran of two runs through the American Piano Awards and victorious the second time last year, Michael Davidman is the guest soloist this weekend with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, anchoring the concert's first half on Beethoven before the ensemble expands and takes on extra cargo for Mahler's  Symphony No. 1 in D major.  There was lots of glory in its performance Friday night at Hilbert Circle Theatre, right through to the eight horns standing and pouring extra energy into the concluding measures. That recalled the similar display in  the ISO's Mahler Sixth last spring, crowning music director Jun M ä rkl' s affinity for the late-Romantic composer.  But first to the program's music of more scaled-back energy, reliant on a transformative composer's roots in the Classical period of Mozart and Haydn. A compact account of Beethoven's rarely indulged dramatic flair opened the ...
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Headed for America, headed from America: Pacifica Quartet returns to EMS series

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  Relaxed Pacifica: Vamos, Ganatra, Holloway, Hartman The last time I heard the Pacifica Quartet on the Ensemble Music Society schedule (March 2021), the caution everyone was feeling at the height of the pandemic made live-stream exposure advisable. But the quartet's excellence was already well-known to me via its CD series, "The Soviet Experience." And its stature among local music-lovers was carved in stone with its live   participation in the chamber-music phase of the 2017 American Piano Awards.  With a few personnel changes (in second violin and viola chairs) since its founding 32 years ago, this ensemble has been prolific both in the recording studio and on the concert stage. First violinist Simin Ganatra and cellist Brandon Vamos are the mainstays; the current roster is filled out by second violinist Austin Hartman and violist Mark Holloway. EMS Indianapolis has pitched its tent for the 2026-27 season on the United States' 250th anniversary this year, celeb...
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Amazing to look at, perplexing to hear, The Da Vinci Code' heads into its final week at IRT.

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  Even devoid of human figures, the set suggests multiple ways in.  Late into its run, I took in a stage adaptation of "The Da Vinci Code," Indiana Repertory Theatre 's season opening production. It will travel to two other theaters later this season. For this one, it meant unaccustomed catching up, which seems quite suitable to a play that prioritizes catching up to what has been revealed before. The audience is put virtually into the skins and minds of the far-flung characters as a murder mystery turns out to enfold the secret of the ages in Western civilization.  Adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel, based on Dan Brown's novel of the same title, the technically splendid production runs through next Sunday at the IRT. Benjamin Hanna directed the show, revealing the sort of manipulative precision that enables some people to solve a Rubik's cube in a dazzling total of seconds.  Dan Brown's recurrent professor, Robert Langdon   I don't know how much h...
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DK in a new place: Old-time courtship and rivalry like you wouldn't believe, but Ichabod did

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The crickets and the fog and the young men of Tarry Town moseying about: like most spooky tales, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" needs just a few signposts of nocturnal mystery to set the appropriate mood, with credit going to the design expertise of Laura E. Glover (lighting) and Mike Lamirand (sound), among others. The version that Dance Kaleidoscope has mounted to start its season adapts Washington Irving's story for a narrative that doesn't need the early American author's flowery language to plunge to the essence of a Tarry Town schoolmaster's credulousness and the insufficiency of his wooing as the linked triggers of his eventual disappearance.   Guest choreographer Joshua L. Peugh has also been in residence to Zay of DK as bewitched schoolmaster Ichabod Crane direct the show, which runs through Oct. 11 at McGowan Hall . On Sunday, DK member Zay gave a fascinating performance as Ichabod Crane, an ambitious, doomed teacher, portrayed as gangly and awkwar...
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Violin competition concludes with brilliant concerto performances

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  There could be little doubt that Karisa Chiu displayed an Karisa Chiu, who has local family links unmistakable star quality in her performance of the Tchaikovsky violin concerto Saturday night at Hilbert Circle Theatre. So it's not a matter of "recency bias," I hope, to find me unsurprised that the jury awarded her the gold medal in the twelfth quadrennial International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. Heard and seen live-streamed, with Leonard Slatkin conducting a thoroughly engaged Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, her performance of this perpetual audience favorite concluded the IVCI's concerto finals phase. Less than an hour later, jury president Jaime Laredo announced how each of the finalists placed, from sixth to first. To start with, they are Lina Nakano of Japan, sixth; Yesong Sophie Lee of the United States, fifth; Xunye Zhang of China, fourth, each of whom carries the designation of "laureate." Besides Chiu, the 2026 medalists are Elli Ch...
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